Carrara 8 Render Node not working

I have a Network set up between my Windows 7 Laptop and 2 Windows XP desktop computers. I have Carrara 8 Pro installed on my Laptop and the Carrara 8 Render Node installed on the 2 XP Desktops. All computers can talk to each other but when I try to render out a project using my laptop and Batch Queue and the Network render is enabled it still only renders using the laptops processor and not either of the 2 Desktops. What do I need to do to get it to work?

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A couple of things, in your render room, then rendering tab scroll down to the bottom. There is an enable network rendering (only available in batch que), make sure that is checked before saving out your doc for the batch que :) and there is a Manage Rendering Nodes. Click on that one, and with the rendering nodes up they will show up if Carrara sees them. If it does then its possible the above, if it doesn't then its another issue, firewall probably. We can step through things once we know what direction the problem is at.

Okay Carrara uses TCP/IP for its networking. What are the IP address of all 3 machines, and can you from the laptop can you ping each of the other machines? (go to start, type cmd, type ping xx.xx.xx.xx for the address). To find the address of the machines you can in the same cmd window type ipconfig and it will tell you what the IP address of the machine is.

Go into preferences on the non render system and go to render room tab, it will have what ports it is using. 5020 is the port1 default, also 2 is 5040, 3 5060, 4 5080. The render node preference will also show 5020.

Your firewall will need to let 5020 through, so check your firewall on windows 7 and if you have firewalls on XP make sure that its going through as well.

I don't have C8, but I do have C7, and one thing that you need to do in C7 is make sure the client machines have the render nodes running before you open Carrara on the host machine. I'm not sure if this limitation was fixed for C8.

This may have also been corrected in C8. but I'm not sure. In past versions, Carrara does not play nice with wireless networks. I believe it has/had something to do with packet errors or something. I can say from personal experience with C7 that it is an issue, and the hard wired network is the way to go.

I had an issue like you once, and what I did was to reset Carrara's preferences. Both on the host and the clients. My thought was that I was over thinking it and along the way I might have done something I wasn't aware of. Resetting to the factory defaults did actually help. I will warn you though, that I had to reload any custom folders and runtimes in the Browser, so it was a bit of a PITA.

I reset my preferences and nothing happened. Should I be able to load a scene in Batch Queue, hit manage rendering nodes, and see the computers? Also, did I skip a step in setting everything up? I connected all computer to the Network Switch via Ethernet, Connected all the computers to the same network, Installed the Carrara Rendernode on the client computers. now I have disabled my firewalls to allow everything. What am I not doing?

I connected all computer to the Network Switch via Ethernet, Connected all the computers to the same network, Installed the Carrara Rendernode on the client computers. now I have disabled my firewalls to allow everything. What am I not doing?

I believe you will need a router, not just an Ethernet switch (apology if I've misunderstood).
It may be possible to do it with an ad hoc network, but I had to use a router.

The way TCPIP works, routing is not necessary if the machines are on the same IP subnet. My set of render nodes is comprised of systems on different switches and a laptop or two using WiFi (switches are tied to the proper uplink connections through physical home network wiring). I'm using Carrara 8.1.1.12 and everything works great. If the nodes are not up when I start the batch job, this is not a problem. Just start the nodes and the server will automatically detect and use them.

Looking at what you have this should be working. In the 'Render Room' preferences, what do you have for the 'Network Rendering settings? I'm particularly interested in what you have for your 'Sub Net' settings.

The IP Subnet is set to automatic but the ID is 192.168.0.0 and the Mask is 255.255.255.0

Over the years, I have found I had to set this to manual and specify the subnet address. I'm not sure if it was the version of Carrara or the Operating System (Windows), but there were times I found manually setting this was necessary for me to get network rendering to work (otherwise I had what you are experiencing).

If you select manual, you must make sure you enter the correct values. Most people set up class C subnet addresses so the default subnet mask (255.255.255.0) is probably ok. My subnet was (and still is) '192.168.1.0' so this is what I entered when I set this to manual. If your addresses start with '192.168.1', then you will want to set yours this way as well.

Should all the computer have the same ID?If so, which computer's IP do I use? If not, do I just use each computer's own IP?

This is not the node's IP address. It's the IP address of the subnet. Since all of your nodes/systems are on the same subnet, this value should be the same for all of your computers. Try first only changing it at the Carrara server/workstation. This will tell the software what network to send its broadcast messages to. If your network rendering still doesn't work. then set this in the 'Sub net' settings on the nodes as well..

I'd been having the same problem with my windows 7 machine failing to see any other render node. So I've been watching this thread with interest.

And Cyborgty's solution of manualing adding the subnet number, just adding that "1" into that one box, worked!

Finally! Thanks Cyborgty!

I'm glad this helped! I know how frustrating this could be, especially if people aren't familiar with how TCPIP or Carrara's network rendering software (documentation is lacking in these details) works. So I felt compelled to share my experience in this area. Also, being a techie geek I had success with getting various network configurations to work. :-)

I'd been having the same problem with my windows 7 machine failing to see any other render node. So I've been watching this thread with interest.

And Cyborgty's solution of manualing adding the subnet number, just adding that "1" into that one box, worked!

Finally! Thanks Cyborgty!

I'm glad this helped! I know how frustrating this could be, especially if people aren't familiar with how TCPIP or Carrara's network rendering software (documentation is lacking in these details) works. So I felt compelled to share my experience in this area. Also, being a techie geek I had success with getting various network configurations to work. :-)

Well, I can't say I understand why it works, but it does! ;)

The crazy thing is if I based the render in one of the other machines (a 32-bit XP PC and a 32-bit OS X Macbook Pro), the render farm worked with all the default settings, including locating the Windows 7 render node with no problem. It was only when trying to originate the render from the 64-bit Windows 7 laptop that I was drawing a blank.

Ok. Lets look at a couple of examples. The network mask (or netmask) identifies the number of octets that are associated with the network address. So lets assume your netmask was 255.255.255.0; the first three octets (numbers between dots) are the network address. if your system's IP is 192.168.1.23, then your subnet address value should be 192.168.1.0. If your network address is 192.168.0.23, then your subnet address is 192.168.0.0.

If you don't know the IP addresses used by any of your systems, you must use a procedure to get this for one of your systems and then derive the subnet address. Otherwise, we could be guessing all day. If someone else configured your network, they could have used addresses that begin with 10.x.x.x or 172.16.x.x, which are valid for privates networks just as 192.168.x.x. So, since you are using Windows, we need to consider how there are several ways to get this info under all versions of Windows. I'm only going to mention two methods. The quickest for me is using the ipconfig command in the Windows command shell (accessed within the Accessory folder of your Start menu path; I have it pinned to my task bar on my Windows 7 systems).

If you don't want to use the command shell, then you can do the following to click your way to the value:
1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center, and clicking on "Change adapter settings" at the top left.
2. Double-click on your "Wireless Network Connection" or "Local Area Connection," depending on which you are using.
3. On the Connection window that pops up, click on the "Details" button. Look for the IPv4 Addr

Once you get the IP address, you could then consider what I have in the examples at the top of this message. Also, as mentioned by -_Milo_-, the ping command can be a simple but valuable tool for testing connectivity between your systems. ping and then the IP address of a target system (i.e.ping 192.168.1.2). If there is a problem with your systems talking with each other, the network rendering will definitely not work.

I have pinged them and they all connect. My main Laptop (HP dv6) on Windows 7 is 192.168.1.1. My two nodes are towers running Windows XP. My HP Media Center is 192.168.1.3 and the Sony Vaio is 192.168.1.2.

I have pinged them and they all connect. My main Laptop (HP dv6) on Windows 7 is 192.168.1.1. My two nodes are towers running Windows XP. My HP Media Center is 192.168.1.3 and the Sony Vaio is 192.168.1.2.

Try having all of the nodes 'Subnet' setting set to 'Manual' and provide the 192.168.1.0 value.

When I had my main machine as Windows 7 and render nodes as Windows XP I also had issues with the Main seeing the XP machines as Render nodes. Windows 7 does not like to connect to Windows XP machines, for lots of things. (Shared folders was another issue I had.)

Please try this. Put Carrara 8 on one of the XP machines and run up the render nodes on the other computers then see if you can see all of the nodes on the XP machine from Manage Render Nodes.

I put Carrara 8.1.1.12 on my XP and it can see the 7 and other xp under Manage rendering nodes. What does this mean? Am I not able to use my 7 as the main machine? And do I have to use the XP as a main computer?

So I put 8.1.1.12 on my XP and the Manage Rendering Nodes can see the 7 and other XP. What does this mean now? Am I not able to use my 7 as the Main computer? And do I have to do everything on my XP?

It means your network is not set up completely correctly and it is a network issue not a Carrara issue.

Unfortunately this happened to me right after Windows 7 came out, and, unfortunately, I don't recall what it was I did to fix it. I remember it was something simple in the network settings but I don't recall what the setting was.